Hazard and Friendship
by hardly loquacious
Summary: Jane decides to buy Lisbon a toy of her own. It doesn't go as well as he expected it to. Post-ep to 6.13. J/L Friendship fic.


A/N: Wasn't entirely thrilled with the last episode, so I wrote a tag. This takes place immediately after 6.13, Black Helicopters. Assume that Lisbon, Jane and Fischer aren't notified of LaRoche's death until after this fic finishes. Also, feel free to assume in this post-ep (and probably any post-ep I write), that Lisbon and Fischer are on their way to becoming best friends. Because I want it to be so. Anyway, enjoy!

Hazard and Friendship

xxx

Teresa Lisbon was sitting at her desk review Van Pelt's report on the CBI phone tapings, trying to read between the lines and find a detail she'd missed, when Jane walked past and dropped onto his couch.

"Hard at work, I see Lisbon," he said.

She shrugged. "You know how it is, things to do..."

"People to save?" Jane smiled. "Still, make at least a little time for play."

Lisbon leaned back in her chair. "Like Wiley and his new Tamigochi? He made me watch the stupid thing _play_ earlier today."

Jane quirked his head to the side. "I'm sure he didn't _make _you do anything."

Lisbon turned back to her computer screen. "Hmm."

Jane smiled and continued. "Just as I'm sure that if he ever asked, you'd even watch the thing for him." She wouldn't be able to help it. Wiley would turn those hopeful eyes on her, looking like a fifteen year old in an FBI Agent's body, and Lisbon would crumble.

Lisbon glanced around, making sure they were alone. "I don't have time to take care of a toy, Jane."

Everyone wants to make time for toys, Lisbon," Jane assured her. "Whether they admit it or not."

Lisbon refused to be drawn down that road, particularly as it seemed to be the direction he wanted to go in. Idiot was probably just waiting for her to ask why he hadn't bothered to buy her anything. Well she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. "Trying to get on people's good sides with gifts?"

"Does Wiley have a bad side?" Jane wondered.

"I haven't seen it yet," Lisbon admitted. "But you never know."

Jane shook his head. "Sometimes you do."

Lisbon ignored that. "Heard you drove off on Fischer earlier." She'd heard about that at length earlier today.

Jane grinned his most charming grin. "She complaining about me already?"

Lisbon grinned back. "She started long ago."

Jane pretended to look innocent (he failed). "I'm not so bad."

"That's what you think," Lisbon shot back.

"She'll come around," Jane assured Lisbon confidently.

Lisbon raised her eyebrows. "With her magic wand?" Actually, seeing Kim shocked by the gift had been kind of nice. Because what woman hadn't wanted a magic wand at some point or other? And Lisbon understood all too well the effect that working with Patrick Jane (and his constant surprises) could have on a person.

"An easy guess," Jane told Lisbon conspiratorially. "Anyway, _you _never went running to the boss when I left you."

Lisbon shut her file with more force than she'd intended. "Yeah, well, I think you'll find that Fischer and I aren't the same person Jane." And it was begin to grate that sometimes he didn't seem to see that. That he just took for granted that all law enforcement supervisory agents were created exactly equal.

Startled, Jane sat up straight on his couch. "_What?_ Of course I don't..."

Lisbon stood up herself, needed to move. "Sometimes it seems like you do."

"Lisbon..." Jane trailed off, unsure of what to say. This conversation wasn't going like he'd expected it to, much like a surprising number of recent conversations with Lisbon actually. He stood up, moving towards her.

Lisbon didn't seem to notice, too busy straightening the files on her desk as she got ready to leave for the day. "And anyway, you have no idea how many times I went to Minnelli about you in that first year. You didn't start stealing my vehicle and abandoning me until years later, when we'd both been working together for ages. When I knew which battles to fight and when to hold the line myself, to protect you from the bureaucracy or an unsympathetic boss."

Really settling into her argument, Lisbon turned to face him, hands on her hips. "I figured out my own rules, ones that worked for me. You can't expect everyone to use the same ones. Kim's barely known you a month! And you're surprised she didn't react to your particular brand of insanity in the same way as someone who's known you a decade!"

Jane stared at her, stunned. "Kim?" he said weakly. Lisbon was on a first name basis with Fischer?

Lisbon just stared him down. Then she took a deep breath. "Did you honestly expect that you'd come back and everything would be exactly the same?"

"No," Jane said immediately. He _hadn't_. He just hadn't expected some of the changes.

"Okay."

"I know you're not the same," Jane insisted, unsure if he meant she wasn't the same as Fischer, or that she wasn't the same as two years ago. Maybe both. "I never thought you were."

"Okay," Lisbon said again, unsure of what else to add.

"I mean it," Jane assured her a third time.

She sighed. "I'm sure you do."

Then inspiration struck. Jane leaned forward with a hint of a smile. "Open your bottom right-hand drawer if you don't believe me," he coaxed. "You won't find a magic wand."

Curious in spite of herself, Lisbon bent over and opened the door. She let out a choked little laugh at what she found there: a Fisher-Price children's doctor kit, complete with black bag. "Where did you get this?" she asked softly, pulling it out of the drawer.

Jane grinned. "You didn't really think I'd forgotten you, did you?"

"No, I thought you were messing with me," Lisbon admitted, sitting back down at her desk and opening the bag.

"Ah," Jane replied, understanding washing over him. She'd refused to give him the satisfaction of toying with her, which made her the most fun to play with of all.

Lisbon fiddled through the bag's contents, finding the thermometer, the stethoscope, the flex hammer. "I used to have one of these," she said softly. "Played with it all the time with my brothers. They were always the patients, of course."

"Of course," Jane agreed, dropping back onto his couch and leaning forward on his knees, utterly fascinated. "Big sister knows best."

Lisbon grinned. "It was my favourite game," she admitted. "I used to wear the stethoscope around my neck like I saw my Mom do sometimes..." Now that she thought about it, her mother had probably been the one to buy her the toy. The memory made her smile. Until her fingers closed around the small plastic cast. She whipped her hand out of the bag and began tossing everything back inside, closing the handles with a click, her fingers shaking slightly.

Jane was already moving towards her. "Lisbon?"

She felt an overwhelming fury in his direction. He _was_ messing with her. The bastard. And about _this_. "Of course, playing doctor with your brothers becomes less fun when you have to do it for real," she snapped accusingly.

Jane was pretty sure his heart stopped as the realization set in. And he knew he'd made a very, very big mistake.

"Was this your idea of a joke?" Lisbon demanded, too upset to care if he saw it. It would be like him. Give everyone else a completely charming gift, and then with her... She didn't understand why he'd done it, but...

If Jane hadn't recognized a defence mechanism in play, he'd have been hurt by the question (he _was _hurt by the question, but knew that was irrelevant – and he probably deserved it after this massive screw-up). "No," he said as firmly as he could. He needed her to believe him. He took a few steps in her direction.

She shook her head and stepped back. 'Guess you're right. I didn't get Fischer's magic wand, though the irony is, I wouldn't mind having one right about now."

"I'm sorry," Jane said sincerely. "I knew you'd have loved playing nurse as a child, helping people. I thought you'd like the gift. I didn't think it would..." He took a deep breath. "I made a mistake."

Though he'd guessed perfectly with everyone else, Lisbon thought angrily. "Yeah, well, maybe my childhood's too screwed up to go back to. I guess I shouldn't be given toys."

Jane shook his head. She needed the occasional toy, just like anyone else. He'd chosen badly; he could admit that. And she'd loved the gift in those first few minutes. He'd seen the wonder in her eyes. He'd seen... It didn't matter what he'd seen. He'd been a fool, arrogant in his assumptions. And now he might need to grovel. "You should have a toy," he said. "You just deserved a better one."

"I'll expect a sparkly pink magic wand in my drawer tomorrow morning," Lisbon said dryly, grabbing her coat.

Jane shook his head again, risked another step forward.

Before he could speak, he heard Fischer's voice. "Good, you're still here."

Both he and Lisbon turned. Even though Lisbon had a pretty good game face, Fischer stopped in her tracks, her gaze flicking between the two of them before finally settling back on Lisbon. "Okay, I was going to ask if you wanted to grab a drink, but now I'm going to have to insist, Teresa. You look like you could use one." Fischer spared a second to glare at Jane.

Lisbon found smile. "Yeah, why not? I was just on my way home anyway."

Fischer smiled back. "Great."

Jane took a step backwards towards his couch, well aware that he wasn't being invited. "Well, you ladies have a lovely evening," he said lightly, deciding a tactical retreat was in order.

"You too Jane," Fischer replied. "And thank you for the wand."

Jane tried not to take the comment as a slap.

Particularly when Lisbon said nothing at all.

xxx

"I still don't know how you worked with him for so long," Fischer said for what felt like the tenth time as the two women sipped their wine at a quiet table in a bar not too far from the office.

Lisbon shrugged, having just finished explaining how Jane somehow felt it was okay to abandon you if he left you the car. "He's not so bad," she admitted. To her relief, Fischer hadn't asked whether Jane had bought her a gift, and it didn't look like she planned too. "Jane's useful," Lisbon continued. "And he'll solve a lot of cases. But he'll never be something he's not."

"I'm not asking him to be," Fischer insisted stubbornly, raising her glass to emphasize her point. "Trying not to at least. I'm just expecting him to follow some basic socially acceptable guidelines for behaviour, to work within the systems already in place, at least some of the time."

Lisbon smiled and sipped her wine. "He'll probably never do that either. You're going to need to be, well, the liaison between Jane and the system. If you work with him, you're going to have to be the one to translate _Jane_ into bureau-speak."

Fischer groaned. "I could use a little help with that."

"I thought that was why I'm here," Lisbon admitted. "I mean, not here-here," she added, gesturing around the bar. "But at the FBI."

"That's not the only reason you're here," Fischer assured her.

"Yeah, Jane demanded me." Lisbon softened the remark with a smile and a sip of her wine.

"You're also a damn good cop," Fischer pointed out. They hadn't been working together long, but that much was obvious. Teresa Lisbon wasn't a perfect cop by any means, but who was? And Lisbon was right far more often than she wasn't. "You think Abbot hadn't read your file before he accepted Jane's "_demands"_? Hell, I think he'd been half hoping you'd apply to the bureau yourself after, well..."

Lisbon knew what Fischer meant. The dismantling of the CBI hadn't been entirely a smooth process, and all she'd wanted was to get a little distance. Washington had seemed far enough away. "Things got complicated," she suggested, helping out her friend.

"Yeah," Fischer said gratefully. "Anyway, Abbot said he knew you weren't dirty the moment he met you. He likes you."

Lisbon couldn't help smiling. "He's a good Director. And I've worked under some bad ones."

Fischer leaned forward. It was the closest they'd ever come to actually discussing Red John and his network. "I can't imagine..."

"No, you can't," Lisbon agreed, heading off the conversation. She wasn't quite sure she was ready to talk about it yet. Soon maybe, but not yet. "Look, I'll help you with Jane as best I can, but some of it..." she trailed off.

"Yeah?" Fischer prompted.

Lisbon chose her words carefully, trying to explain. "The things that work for you aren't necessarily going to be what worked for me," she said eventually. "For a start, Jane's different. Red John's gone, and that makes a huge difference. Plus, not everything works in every situation. I can tell you that bribing him with tea generally helps, and that if you can subtly flatter him so he doesn't realize you're doing it, that goes a long way. Oh, and always pretend to know more than you do."

"Or if you don't know something, pretend that you don't care," Fischer added, remembering a previous tip.

"Exactly," Lisbon said with a laugh. She picked up her glass of wine, considering it. "But at the end of the day, you're still going to have to draw your own line in the sand about what's okay and what isn't, and it might shift with the tides."

Fischer nodded. She was beginning to realize that. And she was realizing just how much better a handle on Jane the woman sitting across from her had. She wondered if she could make that part of her system for dealing with Jane. Whenever possible, make sure Lisbon is around to help keep Jane from doing anything overly irritating. It wasn't the worst idea in the world. "Thanks for listening," Fischer said eventually.

Lisbon's smile was genuine. "My pleasure. I know what he's like." And it was kind of nice that now another person did too.

Fischer paused, wondering if she dared to press further. They were friends, but it was new. "So tonight, if you don't mind me... What did he do?"

Lisbon took a breath. "Something he didn't mean to," she said eventually. "That's the other thing with Jane. There's gonna be a lot of unintended consequences. I'm still figuring out how to deal with those."

Fischer knew that was all she was going to get, so she let the change of subject slide. "Well, if you get any ideas, feel free to share."

Lisbon smiled. That was one of the best things about Kim. She knew when not to push. "The good thing is, it means he's not as infallible as he thinks he is."

Fischer laughed and raised her glass. "I'll drink to that."

Lisbon was laughing too as their glasses clinked together.

xxx

Fifteen minutes after arriving home from the bar, Lisbon heard a knock on her door.

She checked the peephole and rolled her eyes. She should have known. She wondered how he'd decided on an appropriate time to wait before making contact. She hadn't seen a massive motor home on her street, but he'd obviously been lurking somewhere.

She opened the door and immediately found herself with an armful of Patrick Jane.

Letting her frustration at him slide away (helped by the couple of glasses of wine buzzing through her bloodstream), she rested her head against his shoulder and leaned into the hug.

"I _am _sorry," Jane murmured against her ear. "I really am. I didn't mean to..."

Lisbon sighed. "I know." She did know that now, logically at least. The pain had hit her suddenly and she'd just... reacted. She sighed against him, before crinkling her eyebrows in confusion. Because Jane still hadn't let go. She decided she was far too tired to try and figure out what was going on in his brain.

After a few seconds, he pulled back. "Did you have a nice evening with Kim?"

Lisbon smiled to herself. She'd known the first name thing would bother him. Neither she nor Fischer used them much when they were working, but at a bar last names just felt a bit silly sometimes. "I did," she said.

"You two seem to be becoming fast friends," Jane pressed slightly.

"I guess we are," Lisbon agreed. "She's great."

"And soon you'll be teaming up and taking the city by storm, I suppose," Jane murmured. He didn't envy anyone trying to stand in their way. Then he smiled and reached down to grab a gift bag. He handed it to a surprised looking Lisbon. "This is for you."

She raised her eyebrows. "I guess I can assume this isn't a magic wand."

He grinned. "Open it and find out."

Biting her lip, Lisbon tossed pink tissue paper on the floor. Then she pulled out the unexpected large item with a delighted laugh. "A Nerf gun?" she asked, holding it up.

Jane continued to smile inanely. "I thought I'd give you the option of shooting me with it, if you like."

She sent him a half-hearted glare. "Don't push it," she said, examining her gun. "I think Tommy had one of these when we were kids. Not this high tech, obviously. He never let me play with it. Said guns weren't for girls."

"Guess you showed him," Jane murmured.

She laughed again. "If I hadn't, Annie certainly did."

"Yeah. I figured this one was a pretty safe bet as a gift," Jane admitted. And after his earlier mistake, he hadn't been about to take any chances.

Lisbon smirked, before swatting him lightly in the arm.

Jane watched her for a moment. "So I take it you're not mad at me anymore?"

She looked up, the question unexpected. "No," she said. "I'm not. I know it was an accident."

He watched her for a moment. "I'm glad."

She bit her lip. "I'm sorry if I..."

He shook his head. "You have nothing to be sorry for. I should have realized, should have known..."

"How would you know?" she asked. "You were right too. I did love to play with my stethoscope when I was little."

"Because I know you," he said softly. "And I don't like it when you're upset."

Lisbon softened. "Okay."

"I'm sorry if it sometimes feels like I've taken you for granted," Jane added. "That has never been my intention." In fact it had been the exact opposite of his intention. He'd missed her when he'd been gone, and when he'd come back he'd just wanted...

Lisbon had a flashback to an earlier conversation. "Sometimes what you do has unintended consequences," she told him.

"I know," Jane admitted. "I would like to be your friend, Teresa," he admitted. He wanted to be able to ask her for a drink after work, and use her first name if he chose (more than he already did at least). It wasn't fair that Fischer got to do all those things already.

She raised her eyebrows in shock. Jane was certainly going all out tonight. Maybe she should yell at him more often. "I thought we_ were_ friends."

That made him smile. He took a step forward. "I thought we were partners."

She smiled tentatively back. "Well then."

He nodded. "Okay."

Then with one final grin, he'd gripped her in another one of his rapid-fire hugs. "And I have never thought that you and Fischer were interchangeable," he whispered in her ear. "Not even for a second, Lisbon. I've always known that you're irreplaceable." Then with a final squeeze of her elbow, he was slipping out her front door as quickly as he'd come.

Feeling a little discombobulated, but definitely pleased, Lisbon started cleaning up the (bright pink) tissue paper that had gotten scattered in her entrance hall. As she picked up the bag itself, she noticed a small card in the bottom of the bag. Curious, she picked it up and flipped it over to read what it said.

_For Teresa, _

_Who has always known that girls could be just as good (if not better) than boys at target practice._

_Love your friend,_

_Patrick_

Biting her lip, Lisbon tucked the card into her pocket and decided that she definitely wasn't mad at him anymore.

Not even a little bit.

xxx

The end


End file.
